Five Times The Doctor Mentioned River Song
by PatronusDream81
Summary: The five times that the Doctor mentioned Professor River Song, and the the times he didn't. Written because I was upset that the Doctor hadn't mentioned River to Clara much, when all he mentioned Rose a billion times after she left. In my head he did mentioned her, but Clara put it together wrong...


**Author Note: **Hi all, I don't own anything. It all belongs to the glorious Doctor Who team.

1.  
Clara wandered into the TARDIS control room staring intensely at the weapon in her hands. Filled with curiosity and enthusiasm, she had decided to explore the TARDIS while they were on their way to the Crystal Waterfall of Clom.

"Doctor?" She asked, wondering if she should bother him while he was driving. While the Doctor had allowed her to explore his (for lack of a better word) spaceship, Clara wasn't entirely sure she should have been peering into draws. Especially in rooms that looked as though they belonged to someone other than the Doctor, even if she'd never met anyone else who had travelled with him before.

"What is it, Clara?" He looked up from his work, removing a pair of safety goggles from his eyes and what looked like a dentist's bib from his neck.

"I found this in one of the rooms." Clara moved closer, showing him the gun. "It has the word 'Song' engraved on the side of the barrel. Does that mean it plays music? Only I know you don't like real guns."

"Ah," the Doctor took the weapon from her and held it tenderly in his arms. "This is the only one I allow on board. It belongs to an old friend."

"Who?" Clara asked. The Doctor had never mentioned any other guests on the TARDIS.

The Doctor smiled up at Clara, roguish joy replacing tenderness. "Professor Song. The greatest archaeologist in the Universe." His thumb traced lightly across the engraving on the barrel of the gun. "Like Indiana Jones but so much better at archaeology, fighting and sarcastic comebacks."

"Did Professor Song go on adventures with you, before me?"

"Sometimes," he smiled sadly. "Now, are you ready to go swimming?"

Clara nodded, understanding that the conversation about Professor Song was over for now. She was still curious, but the next time she entered the control room the gun was gone, and Professor Song's room was locked up.

-  
2.  
"Why are you called the Doctor?" Clara asked one day. It had been bugging her for a while that he didn't have a normal name. She hadn't meant to pry, but she was a curious girl.

"Out there in the big, wide universe, many planets consider names to be quite important, too important to be given out will nilly. Mine did too, most of the time. My parents gave me a whopping long one as well," He told her. "I've never met a human who could pronounce it. So, on my planet, it was custom to choose a title to be called. Only use our names at ceremonies, like weddings. Titles are so much easier to use."

"Then, if we went to your planet now, all your school mates would be called stupid things like 'The Teacher' or 'The Guide' or something like that?"

"We can't go to my planet. But if we could then, yes. The graduated ones at least," the Doctor laughed. "Better than stupid names like Apple or Mickey."

Clara cursed her stupidity. The Doctor had told her his world was gone, and here she was, dragging up memories. "You can't even go back to before it happened?"

"No, it's gone forever."

"Are you the only, uh, Time Lord that didn't...?"

"There were others. The Master, for one. That's the king of stupid self-appointed names, isn't it?"

"Doesn't think much of himself, does he?"

"The Master? Humble as pie," the Doctor laughed.

Clara joined him. "Any other Time Lords out there?"

The Doctor whispered. "Professor Song."

"Professor Song?" Clara wondered if this was the same Professor Song who owned the gun and had their own bedroom on the Tardis.

"Yes. But now it's just me." The Doctor stood abruptly. "If you'll excuse me I have to turn in."

Clara frowned. Definitely the same professor. Well, well, well... Professor Song was a Time Lord. That certainly made the mystery of who he was more interesting.

-  
3.  
The next time that the subject of Professor Song was touched on was at the end of a particularly exciting adventure involving a prophetic tea cup and a race of killer monkeys. Clara and the Doctor were just about to board the TARDIS and return home, when a breathless man called out for them to stop.

The man was bald, and his skin was tinged a deep fuchsia, as though he had boiled himself or smeared himself in beetroot juice. After regaining his breath, he swept into a low bow.

"Doctor," the fuchsia man greeted him.

"Tiberius Algernoon," the Doctor retuned the deep bow. "How are you?"

"I am well, Doctor." Tiberius stood, now thoroughly composed. He was quite different to the man who had breathlessly sprinted up to them. "Is Doctor Song with you?"

"Not this time," the Doctor shrugged. "This is Clara Oswald. Clara, this is Tiberius, the Dean of the Luna University in the 51st century."

"Pleased to meet you," Clara smiled. Her mind raced. 51st century? Luna University, as in on the moon? Doctor Song, not Professor Song? Questions rushed over her, and Clara struggled to make sense of it all. Perhaps Doctor Song was the Professor's wife. Or husband, she supposed.

"The pleasure is mine," Tiberius replied, before turning his attention back to the Doctor. "Could you deliver a message to Doctor Song for me? She must not go to the Library. It is contaminated."

_She_, Clara thought, _must be the wife then_.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." The Doctor whispered. "She's already gone."

Tiberius sighed. "I thought it was so, but I had to try."

"Thank you," the Doctor bowed again, before stepping into the TARDIS without so much as a farewell.

Tiberius shuffled off as Clara followed the Doctor.

"So, Doctor Song is the wife, eh?" Clara asked.

If it was possible, the Doctor's jaw would have hit the floor it was open so wide. "How?"

So Clara had guessed correctly. Doctor Song was Professor Song's wife.

"It's obvious," Clara laughed. "Did you think I wouldn't work it out?"

"No," the Doctor sighed. "It's just that our paths crossed quite a lot, I'd meet a future version that knew me well, or a past version that didn't know me at all. It's odd to be able to see the whole picture. To be on the other side of it all."

"Okay, now you've lost me." Clara admitted.

The Doctor closed his eyes. he seemed to be struggling to find the words he wanted. "Doctor Song and I frequently met in the wrong order," he forced out at last. "The first time I met her, she died in the Library. So I know I'll never be able to warn her away, because, for me, its already happened."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Clara wondered if the Doctor had been more than friends with Professor Song's wife. How had the Professor felt about that?

"Don't be." The Doctor smiled. "We had a ball together."

-  
4.

"Doctor, what do we do?" Clara asked. They were locked in cold cell in the dungeons on a planet that Clara couldn't even pronounce and they were about to be executed for 'war crimes'.

"I don't know." He sighed. "No sonic screwdriver, no TARDIS, no idea."

Sometimes, Clara felt like she could just kill him. "Surely you must have escaped from a locked cell before."

"Once," he gave her his sad smile. "With River."

Clara frowned. He was once locked in a cell that had a river in it, which he used to escape? How could that possibly help them now? There was no river here. "That doesn't help, Doctor. There's no river."

"Not anymore," the Doctor sighed.

Clara sat down beside him. "You've lost me, Doctor. Was there a river here in the past?"

"No, I meant River Song," the Doctor explained. "Professor River Song."

"Funny name," said Clara. "I thought your lot didn't tell anyone your real names."

"We don't. River Song is an alias," the Doctor stood, turning away from Clara. He took up the path that Clara had been pacing before. "Sometimes I use and alias too. It helps me 'fit in.' I usually go by John Smith."

Clara laughed. "John Smith. Not very original."

"Yes, well, we can't all be as memorable as River Song," the Doctor laughed weakly. "River was great at escaping from locked cells. Did it often enough, I suppose."

"Lost me again, sorry."

The Doctor stopped pacing. "River Song Spent quite a lot of time in Stormcage. It was... will be... a High Security Containment Facility."

"Bit of a rebel, eh?" Clara joked. She hoped it would jerk the Doctor out of his melancholy.

"Always," the Doctor smiled. "Oh, I've got an idea. One time River escaped using a toothbrush, a pillow case and a copy of the _Time Traveller's Almanac_. So if you can find a toothbrush, then I might just get us out of here."

Clara found an old toothbrush under the sink in their cell. In the excitement of their daring escape, Clara forgot all about Professor River Song, at least for now.

-  
5.  
"Why was Professor Song in a high security prison?" Clara asked one day. The Doctor looked at her with wide eyes, and Clara suddenly wished she hadn't said anything.

"Don't worry," Clara apologized. "Stupid question."

"No, no. I thought you might ask, eventually." The Doctor replied. "Murder."

"Murder?"

"It was a fixed point in time, had to be done to save the universe. I'd say that twelve consecutive life sentences are worth the universe, don't you?"

"I know the universe is important, but I think I'd need a little more motivation than that. Twelve life sentences is a long time."

"Yes well, I think it was worth it. River Song killed a very important person."

"Who?"

"Their lover."

-  
6.  
Clara laughed as the Doctor danced lively. The other dancers were giving him a wild berth due to the violent dance moves he was pulling.

The Emperor of the Universe was finally settling down, and he had invited the Doctor and Clara to join the celebrations. The Doctor had only agreed when he had seen the size of the dance floor.

"Don't you just love weddings?" Clara asked.

"Only if they have good music and good company." The Doctor shouted.

"Are you married, Doctor?"

The Doctor smiled. "I'm over 1200 years old. Do you think I'm married Clara?"

"Was that a yes?"

"That was a..." The Doctor stopped dancing, surprise, and a hint of something else, written all over his face. "So sorry. I think I've seen someone I know. Be right back. Stay here."

Clara watched the Doctor weave through the crowd. She couldn't tell who he was walking to, but she knew that look. It was the look he got when he was talking about Doctor Song.

Throughout the eight weeks she had known the Doctor, Clara had imagined the tragic love triangle between the two Doctors. While Professor Song was a Time Lord, Doctor Song must be something else. A human, perhaps?

Clara herself had been drawn to the Doctor when they had first met. A strange man with all of space and time at his feet, what girl wouldn't be swept away? She imagined a young Doctor Song, like herself, thinking that her infatuation for the Professor was love, until she met the Doctor.

It would have been love at first sight, for the Doctor. She would meet him in the Library, tell him how in love they were and then she would die at the hands of her husband. The next time they met, she didn't know him, and she was married to the only other member of his race. He would know how much she would come to love him, and that would make it all the more difficult.

They would have struggled with their feelings, trying to hide them from the Professor, yet allowing them to blossom. The Doctor would have struggled more. He wouldn't have wanted to pick a fight with one of the last members of his race.

So when the Professor discovered them, he planned to kill the Doctor on the fateful day that at the Library, but instead ended up in prisoner for the murder of us wife.

It was a tragedy, the ending. The Doctor had already been there. He knew he couldn't stop her dying, knew from the first day he met her.

Clara didn't know what was worse. Knowing the end was coming, or knowing ha it had come, and you hadn't been able to save her.

7.  
Clara fainted and immediately awoke at a table in what appeared to be a Chinese Restaurant. Coloured lights whirled past, and she was poured a cup of tea from a very expensive looking tea set by Madam Vastra, the woman who looked like a lizard.

Jenny, Madam Vastra's companion, and Strax, the potato-man, were also seated at the table, as though it was normal to pass out from reading a letter and wake up goodness knew how many miles away from her home, her planet, her time...

"Where am I?" Clara asked, accepting the offered tea.

Jenny leaned across the table to explain. "Exactly where you were, but sleeping."

"Time travel has always been possible in dreams," Madam Vastra announced. "We are awaiting only one more."

Clara took drank some of her tea, it was exquisite. Two sugars, dash of milk, it had been prepared exactly the way she liked it. She didn't know how they knew how she took her tea, as she'd never had tea with anyone at this table before. She hadn't even had tea with the Doctor. Maybe she would in the future for her, their past? It was just too confusing to think about.

"Oh no," Strax moaned. "Not the one with the gigantic head."

_Like you can talk_, Clara thought as Jenny corrected him, "It's hair, Strax."

Then, with a puff of smoke a woman appeared on Clara's right. She did indeed have quite a lot of hair, and didn't seem concerned at all by her sudden appearance in this mental projection of a Chinese Restaurant.

Madam Vastra called her 'Professor', and Clara thought she couldn't have been more confused until the woman seemed to conjure a flute of champagne out of thin air.

"How'd you do that?" Jenny echoed Clara's thought exactly.

The Professor smirked, "Disgracefully," before turning her eyes to Clara.

Madam Vastra seemed to notice the two hadn't met, and introduced Clara as the "Doctor's companion..." Yet when the Professor turned her head to face the lizard woman, she seemed to correct herself. "His current traveling... assistant," she finished with a blush.

"Assistant?" Clara echoed. She didn't know what she was to the Doctor, but she certainly wasn't his assistant. She didn't really help at all, unless seeming to get them into even more trouble counted as assisting, in which case Clara was probably the Doctor's best assistant ever.

"Clara Oswald," Madam Vastra added quickly, and looked as though she would very much like the ground to swallow her whole.

Clara turned to the woman beside her, confused. While Clara had been introduced, this woman still remained a mystery. _Professor Who? Professor Song?_

"Professor River Song," the woman confirmed. Clara fought hard to hide her confusion. Professor River Song was a Time Lord (ie _man!_) locked up in a high security prison for killing the Doctor. Wouldn't she be a Time Lady if she was a woman?

Clara was startled from her racing thoughts as Professor River Song spoke. "The Doctor might have mentioned me."

"Oh yeah, 'course he has. Professor Song." Clara said quickly. "Sorry, it's just I never realized you were a woman."

The words where out of her mouth before she realized what she'd said. River Song looked like she could kill Clara, and possibly the Doctor too. (_Or was that again?_ Clara wondered if she had just inadvertently lead to the death of the Doctor.)

Clara opened her mouth to explain she must have got something wrong, or to ask who Doctor Song was then, when Strax broke the silence.

"Well, neither did I," the potato-headed man offered, creating only more tension in the room.

Clara only half listened to the following conversation. She was attempting to add this knew piece of information into her perfectly fabricated love story about the Doctor and his beloved Doctor Song. The Doctor had definitely agreed Doctor Song was Professor Song's wife, but Clara had been sure that all Time Lords were male. The _Master_ certainly sounded like a masculine title, as did the _Professor_. It was very confusing.

The rest of the party seemed to be concerned about some holographic symbols the'd conjured in the middle of the table.

"This is the location of the Doctor's secret," Madam Vastra told the group.

Clara lent forward. "Which is?"

She could think of many things the Doctor might wish to keep secret. That his favourite dish was fish fingers and custard. That he thought bow ties were cool. That he once spent three hours trying to convince an old woman that he was not her grandson, David, only to spend the entire time eating jammy dodgers and wearing a foul knitted jumper. Although none of these seemed enough to warrant a covert meeting or hologram.

"We don't know," Jenny replied. "It's a secret."

_Well obviously_, Clara chided herself again at behaving like a complete idiot.

"The Doctor does not discuss his secrets with anyone, my dear," Madam Vastra rebuked. Clara wondered if Jenny and Madam Vastra were telepathically connected. They always seemed to be on the exact same wavelength. "If you're still entertaining the idea that you are an exception to this rule, ask yourself one question: what is his name?"

Clara knew the Doctor's name was long and unpronounceable. She knew that it was the custom of his people to only use their names at important ceremonies and instead go by a title that they choose themselves. Based on all that, the Doctor's name was _Doctor_, wasn't it?

Or did they mean his real name, the unpronounceable one?

They probably did.

Clara had no idea.

Did anyone?

"Well, I know it," River Song said quietly.

"What? You know his name? He told you?" Clara asked.

Why would the Doctor tell Professor Song his name? Was it because River Song was another Time Lord like him? Maybe she could pronounce it. Maybe they called each other by their real names when they travelled together.

Before River Song was imprisoned for killing him, at least.

Did Clara just feel a twinge of jealousy?

River Song shrugged. "I made him."

"How?"

River sighed. "It took awhile."

"So, you were a... friend of his, then?" Clara pried.

"A little more than a friend, a long time ago." River shifted slightly, so she was no longer looking at Clara. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to work out that River Song was ready to change the topic.

Madam Vastra, obviously, was not a rocket scientist. "He still never contacted you?"

"He doesn't like endings," River sighed.

"Then she said: 'the Doctor can never go to Trenzelore,' wherever that is," Clara explained while the tea brewed.

The Doctor wondered what River could have meant. Was it a warning for Clara to tell him, or was she telling these whispering men that he was never going to come?

Surely it was the former, because River knew that he would go the moment they took his friends.

"So, who was she?" Clara asked as she poured the tea. "The lady with the funny name and the space hair?"

How could such a cold description conjure her so quickly in his mind. He could see her, smirking at him, feel the silky texture of her curls, hear the pounding of her hearts, smell the sent of her fruity perfume, taste the skin beneath her ear as he kissed her for the last time beneath the Singing Towers...

No, he stopped himself from continuing the thought. River Song was gone, there was no use breaking his hearts all over again.

"An old... friend of mine," the Doctor admitted a little more stiffly than he had wanted to.

Clara was still in the kitchen preparing the tea, perhaps she hadn't noticed.

"What? Like an ex?" Clara joked.

His bow tie felt tight, too tight. It was straggling him, reminding him of hands wrapped in cloth, consent given, names whispered, a wife gained.

A wife lost. "Yes, and ex."

The Doctor was sure Clara had noticed something now. He wasn't ready for the poking and prodding he knew would come. "River asked Vastra for the exact words, what were they?" The Doctor asked before Clara had even opened her mouth.

The Doctor could feel when Clara rolled her eyes. There was so many things he wasn't ready to tell her. So many times he changed the subject.

Clara picked up the mugs and walked into the lounge, repeating the phrase she seemed to have learnt by rote. "The Doctor has a secret he will take to the grave. It is discov..." Clara faltered.

She had noticed he was crying, then.

Sometimes the Doctor was able to cry without any tears. Sort of a psychological crying, where it felt like both of his hearts had exploded into tiny pieces. He had been crying like that quite a bit recently. He hadn't properly cried since Rose...

Rose and River. If anyone were to cut out his hearts, their names would be engraved on them. Branding him theirs forever.

He had never really loved until Rose, never thought it possible.

After Rose was lost, he knew he could never love again.

River proved him wrong, like she always did.

"Doctor..." Clara broke through the fog of memories.

The Doctor sniffled, in an attempt to stop his tears. "And it was Trenzelore? It was definitely Trenzelore?" He asked, hoping to distract her. Keep her talking. Keep him in the present.

"Yeah," Clara whispered.

He realized his tears were frightening her. She thought he was afraid to die, when really, he was ready. More than ready to join his loves.

Abandoning his tea, the Doctor sought comfort with the only woman who had remained with him his whole life.

His other love, his other wife, the one who would never leave him.

The TARDIS.


End file.
